If he doesn't want to be married to me, could you break the marriage? Is it the sort of thing that's possible?

The god shows him a glimpse of the city again, presumably this time for Telumë. It's very twisty and confusing and hazy but all the paths stay within certain quite clear bounds. 

I think it would not be impossible, however, it is moot because in all of the futures, he wants to be married to you. I suppose if you wished to break the marriage anyway, there could be a conversation about it.

I don't let myself think things that would make it intolerable to stay here. Once I'm out I can let you know, I guess?

...is this costly? How do gods work, what causes you to have more resources, what do you have to spend them on -

This is not especially costly. You are in the centre of my territory and I am drawing on processes that I am running anyway, since predicting your possible futures is an important component of steering Velgarth forward. Also, in some days' time, Telumë will ask me if I can help you. Since I know this, I may as well start trying now.

He feels rebellious about Telumë asking, Telumë has done enough sculpting him. This is a silly way to feel about it, of course Telumë would ask.  And of course if the answer were that Telumë had done enough sculpting him then that's the answer he'd be given.

Vkandis wanted - temples, people trained as his priests -

I was born here; I have something much better than temples or priests, I have the people who created me.

A pause, almost cautious.

And...the help I would offer you, if you want it, is not sculpting you according to what Telumë wants. Telumë may have been foremost among my creators but he is not my master now. I am not here to shape people towards Telumë's vision; I call myself Foundation because I am here as solid ground that can be built upon. Which includes providing safety rails, but in the end, what you choose to build is up to you.

As long as it's not 'torturing everybody', but that - doesn't feel totally arbitrary, actually, like it did the last time he contemplated it. (He still wants it but he can shove that deeper down. If a god sees mostly in Foresight then maybe they don't see all your wants, just what you might do, and - after everything that feels like a fairly extraordinary kind of freedom.)

That's what Leareth wanted. He thought - there'd be a world that couldn't countenance the things he'd done, to build it. 

Part of being an entity that exists to provide safety rails is that I must scaffold a world where all of the people can build what they wish to, and most people do not wish to be tortured forever, so - in that sense, that part is not arbitrary. I suppose that maybe if for some reason there were people who did, it would be acceptable for others to torture them. You should note that I am a very young god and I am not sure yet how best to accomplish this project. 

So it is totally reading his mind about all of the wanting to torture people, awww, there was something comforting about - being judged by his foresight footprint alone, and he's pretty sure it doesn't have any torturing people in it. He is going to set that aside and think about it later.

He had noticed, that the god is very little and hasn't figured everything out yet. The god is presumably much smarter than him and has wildly more information than him and yet it feels like there's something that's not wholly there yet, still in progress, still finding its feet. (It? He? She? They?) It'll be terrifying, once it is there. Or terrifying for the brief interval between when it gets there and when it gets better at disguising it than Maitimo is at noticing it. But he's pretty sure that space hasn't been crossed already. 

I think my part in it is to get out of here and go wander around talking to people and stay out of trouble and talk to you more once - once I know which parts I want to help with.

I understand. I will be here if and when you wish to speak again.

And the vague sense of there being a bright shining city just in the corner of his eye recedes.

Well. That could've gone worse. 

To the extent he has formulated a plan it is to think about leaving and he can't think about leaving so he can't make progress on it yet. So he should - he doesn't really want to sing, or draw, or read a book - 

- he can hurt himself, it he wants to. It won't hurt Telumë right now, because Telumë isn't conscious, so it's just a question of whether he prefers to be in pain or not. The god won't object; he's allowed to hurt himself. It is probably the only way to increase how much suffering there is in the world that is definitely still under his control, at least on those rare occasions where Telumë isn't conscious. 

He does that. He can only keep it up for a little while; he's gotten out of practice at enduring it, probably. It is satisfying to have the option but he doesn't really expect to exercise it very often. Though - the option to do it without hurting Telumë would be nice. It scratches some kind of itch, if he's aware at all times that he could increase how much torture there was in the universe in a way that didn't interfere with his other goals, if he wanted to. And then if he usually doesn't - that's a fact about what he wants, isn't it.

Melody is outside of the room reading a book and paying some attention to Maitimo, mostly the overall structure of the tapestry and not his thoughts, she noticed he was awake, and thinking, and then - thinking in a way that looked odd and different, which she has guesses about but didn't confirm, spying on someone's prayers with a god seems sort of rude. 

She definitely notices that though, even if she's only watching out of the corner of her eye. She puts a bookmark in her book. :Maitimo, I'm not going to stop you but I am curious why you're doing that: 

The god said Telumë's not conscious, won't be for a while. 

Which isn't a complete answer but she can put together the rest. :I heard, but helpful to have confirmation. Want some breakfast?: 

Sure.

Melody comes in. She brings some hot food fresh from the kitchen, rather than the usual fare that's left out for whenever he gets up.

"Seems like you noticed we made the god and we won," she says, in a level voice. "I think the scaffolding was a good idea. It would've been extremely messy if the oath had broken without that, I think. Still ripped up some things, I did my best to fix it, but probably not everything in your head is going to be very load-bearing right now. Not sure how much you've noticed." 

"A little bit, I think. I don't have as many feelings about the war ending as I expected and I think when I do have them they're going to tug some things oddly. I - appreciate the scaffolding. A lot. And the god thinks I can get to a place that - works, so that's good."

Nod. "I was going to ask what you talked about with Foundation. You don't have to tell me, of course." She puts the food down for him and tugs at her sleeve. "Actually, speaking of that - I'm going to wait until I have a chance to talk to some other people, but now that everything's over, I think we could dispense with some of the honestly kind of absurd precautions we've been keeping you under. We could give you one of those Thoughtsensing shields again, maybe, at least when you're not with people. I know it's been making you feel very constrained, that we could be reading your thoughts at any time, and - I think you need not that, at this point."

"I told Foundation I wanted to leave. And he agreed. Or, well, he asked some logistics questions and I said I couldn't think about those and he said he'd tell you I should be able to think about those, and then at the end I said I needed to leave and go figure stuff out and we made plans to talk after I've done that. I think - part of it's the knowing you're reading my mind, but a lot of it is - trying not to think anything that might make it intolerable to be here, trying not to think anything that'd make me mad at Telumë - I need to leave. I think I'll come back. I would say I don't even think it'll take very long but probably by human standards it'll take a long time. I suspect if I could think about details at all I could come up with a scheme that didn't seem too dangerous."

Melody is quiet for a moment, fidgeting with the hem of her dress.

"...That took you not very long at all to come to a similar conclusion to mine," she says, smiling; she sounds a little impressed. "I think you need space. I think Telumë needs space. Everything you said makes a lot of sense. I - can probably get that restriction taken off before Telumë's back, actually." She hesitates. "Do you want to see Telumë before you leave, if we decide on that? I would understand completely if not. So would he although I'm sure he'd have some feelings about it." 

"I don't know. I'm - not really sure whether I'll be mad at him once it's safe to be and it might depend on that."

"Then it sounds like you shouldn't? We definitely need to come up with something that'll make it safe for you to be mad at him, whether that's you leaving or not, and - I mean, if you do that thinking and conclude you're not mad at him and want to see him, you could always do it then." 

"I mean I could maybe try having it be safe to be mad at him now and seeing whether I am fact am and, if not, I could say goodbye. ...but maybe I just shouldn't."

"I would be concerned that it's hard for it to feel safe being mad at him when you're still physically located in one of his places and we haven't decided yet whether it's a good idea to let you wander the world, not to mention he's presumably– hmm, actually I have no idea if he's coming back here right away. There's kind of a lot going on. Anyway. I wouldn't judge you for being mad, but it might, well, make it intolerable to be here, and no matter what we decide I would feel more like I was doing my job right if you stayed at least a week. Given that I'm not totally sure some part of your mind isn't going to just unravel when confronted with anything surprising and it seems worse for that to happen when I'm not there." Shrug. "That being said, if you never wanted to see my face again, that would honestly be pretty reasonable too." 

"Foundation said they'd be back in two to three days. I ...guess I do not want to do any thinking about Telumë or about being here before it is definitely decided that I can leave."